Women's Initiative: Where Dreams Become Thriving Businesses

Wednesday Linkblogging

• A San Jose Vietnamese American legislator is being attacked by a group in her own community for daring to go against their wishes and name the Vietnamese ethnic business district "Saigon" instead of "Little Saigon." As the Merc article points out, it may seem like a petty squabble, but it covers a number of issues important to Vietnamese American communities.

The process reminded them of a communist tactic, said some in the community, which is highly sensitive about such matters. There was an illusion of choice but, in the end, the people had no true say.

Many Vietnamese refugees remain vigilant against communism, especially the older generations who vividly remember their homeland and the fierce war that swallowed it, killing millions. Most of the regular City Hall protesters are at least middle-age and carry tales of dead parents, communist jails and months spent languishing in refugee camps.

They have rebuffed the complaints that Little Saigon - used by communities from California to Australia - doesn't set San Jose apart. My Phuong Le, one of the protesters, notes that Chinatowns dot the globe without causing any apparent confusion.

Supporters may not have articulated their case well to outsiders - reason and emotion swirl into sometimes rambling, defensive speeches - but they expected Madison Nguyen to understand their concerns. After all, she shares their history.

This article helps to illustrate why immigration remains such a volatile topic: it's hard for outsiders to understand why or what will be important to an immigrant group, and insensitivity runs in all directions.

• A Philidelphia women's squash star has opened her own business in, what else?, a fitness club with squash courts.

When it was time to venture into a new field, Holleran did her homework, conducting exhaustive demographic research and taking a class at Wharton to hone her business skills. She gathered a group of investors made up almost entirely of Philadelphia-area squash players.

Zug said Holleran's business style mirrors her approach to squash.

"She was a grinder, wearing you down," Zug said. "That's how she operates with this business."

Read the Phildelphia Inquirer profile on her. It's a great article!

• Here's an article from the Denver Business Journal about a Colorado entrepreneur whose business is making opportunities for other women entrepreneurs.

Seabold's 7-month-old company, A Boutique for the Soul, arranges shopping boutiques in homes and women-owned businesses in the Denver-Colorado Springs area. Hundreds of women business owners have signed up to show off their wares.

Think a Tupperware party, but with lots of different vendors, plenty of one-of-a-kind items and creations you'll brag about for months.

Unfortunately, you'll have to be a subscriber to access the rest of the article, but check out A Boutique for the Soul's website. What a great idea!

• RetailSmart blog has an interesting post about using 12-step program strategies to improve your customer service.

Learning from alcoholics seems contrarian but it makes a lot of sense. The first step in the program is an ADMISSION. Alcoholics must admit their addiction before progressing to the next step....“My name is Joe/John/Julie/Jane – and I am responsible for the poor customer service in my store.”

• Alphablogs is hosting a "Canada 9-5" business blogging carnival. A blog carnival is where a group of bloggers pledge to post on a certain topic, and the carnival host links to all of their posts. Check it out.

• And finally, some straight talk from ezine articles about poor credit loans.

-- Claire Light, Women's Initiative Blog Editor

Mises Misses with their ‘Myth of Microcredit’

Part 1 of 3

"Microcredit won’t make poverty history” said a Guardian Unlimited article shortly after Grameen Bank entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Prize in 2006.

Von Mises Institute researcher Jeffrey Tucker cites this article in lambasting what he calls the “micro-credit cult.” In a November 2006 blog post Tucker writes that Grameen is not a genuine market institution, unlike pawn shops and pay day loans which the "anti-capitalist left" despise. Yet they somehow have the gall to shower the Grameen Bank with praise.

We get it, Tucker, but Grameen won the Nobel Prize for PEACE, not economics. Von Mises himself missed this boat but some of his adherents such as F.A. Hayek and U of Chicago founder Milton Friedman did ascend to Nobel Econ greatness. Besides, does that make Dell, Gates and the Google Duo--among other microcredit philanthropists--a part of the "anti-capitalist left"?

Get The Message Out!

A wise colleague told me this week that she doesn’t make resolutions, she creates a theme for the year. So here is our theme for the year; GET THE MESSAGE OUT!

Housing foreclosures, poverty at an all time high, inflation outpacing income and women and people of color clearly hurting the most: it is urgent that we immediately, loudly and with great conviction, address the issues of poverty and discrimination.

It wakes me up at night, the drive to get the message out – this works! Low income women of color are great assets which are underutilized. The looming deficit in California hangs heavy but it is unnecessary.

Women’s Initiative is watching our economic return on investment results go up every year. Every year we are more effective in helping women turn a small investment in their dreams into big returns for the local economy.

Want to change society? Invest in a low income woman entrepreneur and you can turn the tide of an entire economy!

GET THE MESSAGE OUT!

Monday Linkblogging: Women Entrepreneurs

• Siam BBS Weblog has a Top Ten Women Entrepreneurs' Empowerment Tips list. These include "Enlightenment" or faith in a higher power, empowerment of self, balance in family life, and the power of networks.

• Black Enterprise has an article about Dr. K.H. Wang, the businesswoman behind the Smart Reader preschool learning system.

"The objective of being an entrepreneur is, of course, to make money. But immediate profit is not the objective. Money is not the be it and end all. Your business must be able to affect change for the better," affirms this successful woman entrepreneur.

• Check out the new GWN Lifestyle: The Online Magazine for the Woman Entrepreneur. "GWN" stands for Girls Who Network.

Our mission is to help women create the lives they love and deserve. Life becomes a lot easier and much more fun when you have money in the bank. Once finances are taken care of, it is amazing to see the wild, crazy, and outrageous lives women lead. That’s what life is all about, right? Having the BEST time of your life!

• And finally, check out this interesting article from the San Francisco Chronicle about entrepreneurs making New Year's Resolutions for their businesses. The article isn't specific to women entrepreneurs, but all the examples they use are from women:

Two years after starting a business making healthy frozen meals for young children, San Franciscan Jill Litwin resolved that 2007 would be the year she introduced her products at a trade show.

... But simply renting a booth would cost $4,000. Outfitting it with high-quality displays would be another $10,000 to $12,000, which was more than she could afford.

So Litwin came up with a creative do-it-yourself solution. A designer friend used PVC pipe and Velcro to create a beautiful booth for free. Litwin drove it down to Anaheim in her jeep. Her mother flew out from Milwaukee to help staff the booth.

... The upshot? Litwin landed a national distributor, which had been her second goal for the year.

A Retailer Decommercializes Christmas

I remember smiling wryly when I became old enough to understand Charlie Brown's dismay over the selling of Christmas.  Old enough to resent the predatory-lending tactics of credit card companies and the profane abuse of all things St. Nicolas by department stores.   I remember when I began to bristle at the way Christmas was foisted onto the haunches of Thanksgiving . and then, when that failed to sate the titan appetites of the mighty retailer, onto Halloween.   Did they pay their employees overtime, I wondered, to strip all the Halloween decorations and replace them with Christmas ones in one unhallowed night?  Grrr!

But, many years later, I have come to accept that Christmas and commercialism are inextricably bound.  Anyone who listens to the radio, watches TV, or dares to leave their house during the month-and-a half leading up to The Day knows this well.  And what of we small business owners?  How do we respond to the onslaught that is the Holiday Season?   We get in there and fight like the rest of them!  Sale, Sale, Sale!

Yes, I confess to tacking on a "Holiday Special" to my shopping cart and hoping to get in on the biggest online shopping day in years, but it seemed almost like sleeping with the enemy to do so. 

And so to cure my commercialism-malaise, I gave myself a dose of the classics, "It's a Wonderful Life", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", and of course, "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown".  If you've seen these, you know that they are strong medicine against getting-for-the-sake-of-getting, dog-eat-dogitis, and other varieties of capitalist disease.  Or to put it simply, they are just plain old good medicine for what ails you, be that bills that need to be paid, the threat of having to return to a 9-5 job to pay them, or what have you.

Do you remember the line in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", where the narrator says [to paraphrase], "It came without presents.  It came without bows..Maybe Christmas means just a little bit more."? Darn that Dr. Seuss!  That one really got to me.  Now that I am in the world of business, of customers and clients, now that I am a purveyor of goods, what does Christmas mean to me? 

The chicken in me wants to focus on the way I celebrate Christmas in my personal life and to exempt Our World Books from the question.  Chicken Me says, Why should I have to hold myself to some noble standard in all things when there's shoppers to be caught and money to be had?!? 

I acknowledge that being a business owner is not easy and a principled one even less so.  But I can't shake those immortal words of Dr. Seuss and Linus' speech of the true meaning of Christmas - something about peace on earth and goodwill toward men, I think - and I can't separate who I am in business from who I strive to be in everyday life.  A person of decency and honor.  And although I allow that I will not always meet all of my expectations, on this year, the first full year of my life as a business owner, I've decided to make the foundation of my company about contributing value to society. 

So, I sat back and thought about what I could contribute this holiday season through my business.  What can I give?  Last year I was able to make a significant donation to two charities I strongly believe in www.WorldofGood.com and www.ProliteracyWorldwide.com , but as of now my money's way too funny to do that.  So what then? 

Like many of you, I came to owning a business after a bit of life experience, and sometimes being financially limited is the best way to remember that we have much more to offer than just money.   Time, experience, wisdom, compassion, advice, these are free to give and priceless to receive. 

After some reflection, I remembered an article on pursuing dreams that I'd wanted to post on my site for some months.  It was one of the many offerings I saw myself providing to any and all who visited my website www.ourworldbooks.net.  And in thinking on it, I recalled that in my business plan I'd mentioned making life-affirming, uplifting, educational and entertaining content a regular feature on my site.  I'd forgotten.   That's what I'd contribute, I decided.  And if you go to the lounge tab on my site you'll see my gift to all of you in the form of 15 Action Steps to jump-start your dreams (of course owning a business is only one of a zillion!) and a questionnaire you can use to help clarify your dream(s) and focus your actions towards realizing them. 

I am delighted that I started this new tradition for Christmas this year, one I will cherish and renew in the years to come.

Much continued success to you!

---Tracy Watson, WI grad '06 and Publisher, Our World Books - Books That Inspire Falling In Love With Your Life!